And he withdrew his application for a specialist post in the department’s school resource and youth engagement unit, for which he had been shortlisted, because a sustained finding inside twenty-four months disqualifies you, and the post went to somebody else in the February.

He told me all of that himself, unprompted, in a diner, in the February of 2024, and when I started apologising he put his hand up.

“Sarah, don’t.

It was the right finding.

I was awake for twenty-six hours and I wanted to give that boy something and I used a police department to do it.

I sent two of my own officers to terrify a woman in a dressing gown because I could not think of a better way to get her to my house.

“I have thought about that since.